E is for...

I guess if your little ones like elephants, they might like another poem for bedtime from the Teddies' ABC

E is for Elsie, who's so elegant
Riding up high on a cute elephant
Look, Aunty Em. Hey what do you know...
I can twiddle and twirl on just one tippy toe!
Wise Aunty Em thinks the tricks are too risky
But Elsie just laughs - she loves being frisky.
She's been lucky so far, to tell you the truth.
But I'm sure before long she'll have chipped a front tooth!

Watch Copenhagen Zoo's baby elephant grow up...

CLICK HERE and then scroll down to see the cute baby elephant on video

Photo: Frank Rønsholt

If you can't get to Copenhagen Zoo, don't worry. You can still watch the baby elephant grow up by following this link.

A day at the Zoo

Here's the cutest baby elephant I've ever seen.

Can you see him in this picture hiding behind his mum?

Here's a clever sea lion taking his ball back to the zookeeper.

Up on his nose...

...and he gets a tasty fish.  You can't see it, because it's already in his tummy.

These mummy monkeys had a smart way of keeping their babies out of mischief.
They hung on to their tails as they combed through their fur to find interesting nits and pieces.

This little monkey has got a home really. But he learned a
lot  from reading the displays in the monkey house. 

And here's our happy sea lion at the end of the day,
bathing  in the sunshine with his mates.

Happy Easter Monday...

Happy Easter from Samson!

Naughty Carlos likes to sit up on the roof. When we arrived, he surfed down to meet
us on a cushion of loose reeds poking out from under the window, and accompanied us on our trip round.

Here's Henny the rather shy chicken. Not many chickens  are as old as her (10)
 - or have such fluffy petticoats to keep out the cold.

This little lamb has a curly coat like Watson the dog. 

Real cowboys!

"When's the better weather coming?"

And this is what the farm looks like in summer.

Smidstrup Farmen, Jydebjergvej 32, Smidstrup, Gilleleje; tickets 90kr, children 60kr, under-2s free adm;
+45 2126 6699; www.smidstrup-farmen.dk 

Fishing for Easter eggs...wacky lemon curd chicken cakes

Take a fairy cake, add a marzipan head and beak and hold
a 'hen party' for your friends this Easter.

Lemon curd 

(for gluing on the wings)

125 g (4 oz) butter in cubes

250 g (8 oz) sugar

Finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons

4 egg yolks

Put the butter, sugar, lemon zest and juice together in a bowl that fits on top of a saucepan of simmering water. Not too much hot water  - but not too little either. Stir until everything melts and then beat until smooth. Continue beating as you add the egg yolks and just keep beating and beating until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Don't worry, it gets a bit thicker in the fridge when it cools. 

Sponge cake 

(based on Miller Howe recipe)

Preheat the oven to 180^oC/350^oF
250 g butter
4 eggs, beaten (free-range or your chicken cakes will come back to haunt you :o)
250 g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
finely grated zest of 2 oranges (we used clementines that needed eating up)
juice of one orange (or clementine)
juice of one lemon

Cream together the sugar and butter in a big bowl until light, fluffy and almost white. Beat in the eggs a little at a time. Fold in the sifted flour and then add the citurs juices and zest. Don't worry. Our mixture looked all odd at this point - kind of separated but I thought 'I'm not wasting all that' so we put it muffin cases, cooked it anyway and it got its act together in the oven and came out lovely! Wait until they are springy to the touch and resist the urge to keep opening the oven door to look at them or they'll flop.

We threaded mini liquorice allsorts onto long red liquorice 'shoe laces' to make chicken legs using a kebab skewer. It was actually very fiddly and we decided they looked just as good without. 

First you make the sponge buns in muffin cases. Then you slice the top off,
like you do with fairy cakes, cut the circle in half and use lemon curd to stick the
halves on at angles to make wings. If your cakes don't rise awfully high, then
just cut another cake in half to make two sets of wings (like we did;o) 

Now take a lump of marzipan and mould it into a head and neck.
Add whatever sweets for eyes, beak and comb you fancy
and stick the head and legs on in front of the wings.

Cool chick with beak and Beats.

I wouldn't want to meet these chickens on a dark night. But they were surprisingly tasty.
Finger-licking good, in fact!

Fishing for Easter eggs - how to make a 'gækkebrev'

Chocolate is a great incentive for getting creative

You'll need some paper, a pair of small scissors and it's a snip!

Fold the paper and cut shapes out along the fold line...zippety, snip!

This one has organic curves, squiggles and hearts.
Backed with blue tissue paper, it looked quite dramatic taped against the window.

The next one had sideways slits cut along the middle fold line.
These were then bent back to add some texture. 

It looked good against Easter green paper.

Traditionally, these letters had a snow drop flower (vintergæk in Danish)
inside them. But we think it's sad for the flower.
You could make a flower or draw one instead if you like.

What next?

When you've made your own pretty letter, it's time to make up a poem.
We came up with this one...

Gækkebrev poem

Roses are red, Violets are blue

My name is written with dots for you

Guess it right? No egg in sight

You hold onto your chocolate tight 

But if your guess is incorrect

I'll get an Easter egg, I expect!  

But I'm sure you can do better! Now count the number of letters in your first name 

and sign the letter with that number of dots. Post it off and wait for a call.

If you don't hear anything, you can claim your Easter egg!

Have fun

.....

The grand opening of the new National Aquarium

My friend Jane and I were lucky enough to be given a 'sneak preview' grand personal tour of the stunning new National Aquarium Denmark. And are some photos of our visit and a few of the 20,000 fish and other marine animals you will be able to see...including what looks like an underwater camel (above)

Anders Kofoed was kind enough to show us
how  visitors will be able to get friendly
with crabs,

lumpfish...
...and plenty more besides.

Ooh it tickles!

Jane gets suckered into shaking hands with a lovely Pacific octopus.
Naturally, this won't be part of the entertainment on offer to the 700,000
visitors expected every year. Despite having eight arms,
the poor octopus would get tuckered out in no time.

But the behind-the-scenes guided tours five times a day
will take you past the tank to say hello.

And here is Jane, waving to a diver who was cleaning the Ocean Tank, which is big enough to hold 40 buses! She's standing in the transparent tunnel that leads right through the tank so that you can see hammerhead sharks, sting rays and shoals of other fish all around you. Don't worry, as you can see by the 'white line' in the photo, the acrylic tunnel is thick enough to hold  the 4 million litres of water in this huge tank so you don't get wet feet.

Compare the two pictures above....Can you spot the difference?

We were the first visitors to walk across the glass
floor after the protective covering was removed. And we didn't break it!

Photo: Per Fløng

A sea lion. Ultimately they will be fed outside in 

nice hot weather (if we ever get any here in Denmark).

Photo: Per Fløng

Our friend the Pacific Octopus.

Photo: 3XN

This is the National Aquarium building designed by 3XN to resemble a whirlpool.

Plenty of room to grow for this lucky shark!

Spot the leafy sea dragons